In laser engraving, there exists an interesting, albeit slightly counterintuitive phenomenon where increasing the engraving speed beyond a certain point results in a longer, not shorter, processing time. This seemingly paradoxical scenario can be understood by delving deep into the dynamics of the engraving process, which involves not just a constant speed phase but also acceleration and deceleration phases. Let’s unpack this!

 

To illustrate this, we made a chart to compare the time spent walking the same distance with two different processing speeds: 100 and 200, maintaining the same level of acceleration.

 

 

In this system, while it’s apparent that during the constant speed phase, a speed of 200 takes half the time as a speed of 100, there is more to the story. The time to accelerate to 200 and decelerate back to 0 is significantly more substantial than doing the same for a speed of 100, essentially taking twice as long in both the acceleration and deceleration phases.

 

The engraving process can be broken down into three distinct phases:

Acceleration: The laser head speeds up from 0 to the target speed.

Constant Speed: The laser works at the target speed, engraving the material.

Deceleration: The laser head slows down to stop.

Adding up the times taken in all these phases gives us the total motion time, and here we find that using a speed of 200 indeed results in a longer total time compared to using a speed of 100.

 

So, what we uncover here is a nuanced understanding of speed and time efficiency in laser engraving:

A prevailing misconception is that a higher speed always results in a shorter time. However, this overlooks the crucial periods of acceleration and deceleration, which can significantly prolong the total time for higher speeds, especially for short processes where the constant speed phase is relatively brief.

Another way to grasp this is to think about the distance covered to reach the target speed; a higher speed necessitates a longer distance, therefore requiring a more extended time frame.

 

 

Overall, understanding this speed-time relationship is helpful in predicting the actual time it would take to complete your project. Therefore, when setting the engraving speed, you might need to consider the acceleration and deceleration phases to truly save time.